Day 37 - Thursday, Nov. 21 - In transit

Shanghai International Airport

An entire day getting from Point A (Siem Reap) to Point B (Delhi).
       Looking at a map, it would have been more logical - and much shorter - to go through, perhaps, Bangkok in Thailand.  Or even via Bangladesh.
       But no, I’m routed through Shanghai, waaaaay back 2700 km (1678 miles) to the northeast!  Then another 4250 km (2640 m) on to Delhi.  That’s almost 8000 km (5000 m) in all.  Whereas a direct flight would have been only 3240 km (2013 miles).  I hope I’m getting miles for this!



The death ride to the airport in the tuk-tuk on dark roads in Cambodian traffic was an experience; I think the driver had a hot date he didn’t want to miss.
       I leave behind Cambodia, which I thought had changed its name to Kampuchea, but I haven’t heard that word used at all.  (Turns out that name ended in 1989, and especially after the monarchy was restored in 1993.)  I leave without learning what the Cambodian currency is called because all prices in Siem Reap are quoted in U.S. dollars.  (It’s the riel - 4,065 to the dollar!)  I paid for a bottle of water at the airport with several big riel bills and got $1 back in change.  All the bills have the image of Norodom Sihanouk on them, at different ages.  His son is now king, but is unmarried and has no descendants.  I hope Cambodia isn’t headed for more trouble when he dies, but he’s just a figurehead and not the head of the government; the prime minister is.  The national economy is booming, having grown at an average 8% for the past twenty years.  Cambodia is a wonderful country, gentle in many ways, and ecologically conscious with trash bins at the airport sorted by cans, plastic, paper and “general”... although by the roadside there’s much refuse tossed and not picked up.


Two hours waiting at Siem Reap airport and a slightly early departure because all of the few passengers are there.  (That's never happened to me before, ever!)  I have a whole row to myself, as we all do, and catch about an hour of sleep.  It will prove a precious commodity.  Then ten hours - count ‘em: ten! - at Shanghai airport.  (Garry Collins, be sure to thank Delta for me for that!)  I have no Chinese currency and they won’t change my Cambodian money, although I have 31,500 riels in my wallet (under $8).  So after I finish off the last of my Snickers (thank you, Stanley), I’m tired, hungry and thirsty but nothing in the airport opens until 6 a.m.  Even then, I have no Chinese money.  Finally Starbucks saves me because they accept credit cards, so I get a tea, a chocolate croissant, a bottle of water and some cashews for later.  Just in case.

        Traveling makes for interesting exchanges.  I spend a lot of my waiting hours talking with a Filipino man who’s in transit from a wedding in Manila back to his home in Vancouver.  His is the flight before mine.  On my plane I’m seated next to a Sikh returning to India from his home in Los Angeles with his wife, father-in-law and ten-month-old daughter.  A vegetarian, he has great trouble getting truly vegetarian food from the China Eastern staff, generally very lackadaisical about their job description on this seven-hour flight.
       We take off at an elevation of 11 feet (Pudong Airport is built on tidal flats on the coast) and will have to climb high to fly over part of the Himalayas.  That’s only part of the change from the Far Eastern countries I’ve visited (Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia) to the Asian subcontinent (India and Nepal).  Another change is in time; as with Hiva Oa, Delhi is a half-hour off of the countries around it - a strange time zone.  When it’s 2:30 in Shanghai at take-off, it’s 12 noon in Delhi.

Then I have my first - and I hope my last - negative experience on this trip.  There is no sign with my name on it at the airport on arrival.  A man offers his services and I think he’s showing me to a shuttle bus.  But it’s a taxi he takes me to.  Then he jumps in the front.  Hmmm. Once underway, the driver says the short drive to my airport hotel will be... $60!  (Shades of the $15,000 in bogus charges from India on my credit card last May.)  We haggle.  I’m not at my best with only a half-hour nap in a chair at the Shanghai airport, and a transit of 21 hours total.  I just want a bed.  I get off with my life, my suitcase, and only a $30 fare, but the hotel staff is furious with them.  The lobby manager Gaurav becomes my guardian angel and I’m soon safe in bed instead of sold into slavery.